The Criterion Collection
Essays
Mar 10, 2009 — Akira Kurosawa made Dodes’ka-den (1970) during the most crisis-laden period of his career. He had just spent two years embroiled in an ill-fated venture with the Hollywood studio Twentieth Century Fox to direct the Japanese segments of the World War...
Production Notes
Feb 24, 2009 — On January 12, French cinema lost one of its truest enablers. Claude Berri was as well-known for his support of cinema, both financial and critical, as he was for his own filmmaking. The actor turned director-writer-producer made twenty-three films (the...
Jan 6, 2009 — Bernardo Bertolucci’s Oscar-winning film is not just an epic but also a small film, one in which, somehow or other, the scope of David Lean has been enriched with the vision of Ozu.
Nov 27, 2008 — A genuine cause célèbre, adapted from Romain Gary’s 1970 nonfiction novel, Samuel Fuller’s late work is an unusually blunt and suggestively metaphoric account of American racism.
Essays
Nov 19, 2008 — Albert Lamorisse’s principled balancing of objective fact with childish wish fulfillment results in a new, paradoxical genre—the documentary of dreams.
Production Notes
Oct 14, 2008 — Okay, quiz time. What does the music video for Justin Timberlake’s “SexyBack” have to do with the Criterion Collection? Give up? Well, it was shot by none other than ace director of photography Christopher Doyle, whose work is being brought...
Aug 18, 2008 — This modest-scale psychological drama by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger follows an explosives expert with a drinking problem who harbors a great deal of bitterness.
Essays
Jul 21, 2008 — A dreamy alternative to the standard notion of horror, Carl Theodor Dreyer’s phantasmal film reimagined the figure of the vampire.
Jul 21, 2008 — Akira Kurosawa’s modern adaptation of an American thriller represents a departure from his usual themes and stylistic choices.
Apr 17, 2008 — Judging from many of the reactions we get from viewers, there’s a gratifying sense of discovery that accompanies each new Eclipse release. That comes as little surprise to us, since that same feeling is as alive and well here in...